Quote:
Originally Posted by mfinity
So you've had the AVIN unit now for over a month - any followup commentary? I'm terribly interested in it - actually just waiting until monday to submit the order.
How's the glare?
Bugs issues?
BT streaming work?
Pandora and other android apps work ok?
Anything else to share?
Thanks!
|
The glare is a little bit better than OE Navigation - Contrast and brightness is improved, however the angle of the screen makes it susceptible to glare. Closing the sunroof shade helps a lot.
Bug issues: This is the number one problem, there are bugs! Mine had an issue where sometimes the volume could not be changed (even after rebooting). Usually a factory reboot (resets everything and erases all apps and settings) solves this, but it did not for the most recent occurence. They have never heard of this problem so they agreed to send me a brand new head unit after I send the defected one back. They have just received my head unit and will ship the new one out tomorrow! Sometimes when you have a lot of apps open the unit will lag or crash. Installing a SWAP memory partition improves this by giving the system some more RAM to use.
BT Streaming: I can confirm that BT streaming works quite well when streaming spotify through my iPhone 5.
Audio Apps: I have not tried Pandora but Spotify works well. This is based off your internet connection. The optional 3G Modem sucks, I couldn't stream one song without it buffering every 5 seconds. When I upgraded to an AT&T 4G LTE personal hotspot (AT&T Unite), the buffering stopped and I was able to stream music flawlessly. Its actually fast enough to stream Netflix!
Torque: I purchased the OBD2 Bluetooth adapter from AVIN and it worked fine. However I came across a problem a week later where the unit would not recognize the OBD2. I tried a friends OBD2 and AVIN recognized it. The owner was nice enough to let me return it for a refund. I decided to buy the OBDLink LX which is a higher quality OBD2 bluetooth unit. The cheap ones such as provided from AVIN are of the ELM327 module. If you go to torque's website they will claim that some of these cheap Chinese knock-offs will not work with Torque. I believe I was a culprit to that claim. I like the OBDLink LX because you can keep it plugged in without draining your battery, it has an auto off feature. The only downside with the AVIN regarding OBD2 functionality is that you must pair the OBD2 everytime you turn on the car!
Navigation: I have only tried Google Navigation and Waze. For some reason Google Navigation always crashes (other users have reported this) the developers are currently working on a solution. Waze has worked for me, although I believe it crashed one time. I still haven't used it a lot so I can't give an honest review on it. I tried installing Sygic but it had bugs and the screen would keep blinking, so I am sticking with Waze.
Other Issues:
I noticed that the weather on the home screen does not automatically update. You have to go and refresh everytime (ANNOYING).
Bluetooth phone connection works well, audio quality and connectivity are good. To give you an idea, I was on the phone with my friend while walking to the car, as I turned the engine on while talking, the call went instantly to car speakers (I was amazed by how fast this happened). The downside is you have to sync phonebook everytime you turn the car on, if not, any incoming call will register as unknown. I try to make a habit of syncing right when I turn the car on as it will sync in the background while using navigation or listening to radio/music. The developers said that it was designed this way for privacy reasons
To be honest, you may be upset at first as there is a learning curve with this unit. You have to change some settings and get used to the interface. I would highly recommend buying a high speed microsd card and create a 512 MB SWAP partition. This will reduce the lag but only up to a minute. You also have to understand that you should not run many apps at once. Make a habit of closing apps instead of going to home screen. A rule of thumb for me is I will not run Torque simultaneosly with Waze. But I will run Spotify with Waze or Spotify with Torque. Just not all three together or Waze with Torque. I don't mind this as if I need directions to drive somewhere I am not really going to be messing with Torque.
Audio quality is excellent, some people said they have interference but that could be related to the install. I will update my review when I get my new replacement unit. If this volume issue completely goes away with the new unit, I will be satisfied with this head unit.
About the support, Tommy (developer/owner) is very helpful and responds fast to any question you may have. If you ever need troubleshooting help or just general questions, he will be able to help you.
Check out the forum on e46fanatics.com There is a thread that is about 20 pages or so. (My user name on that forum is Dr3wX5) Tommy pointed out that there may be a software update coming soon to address the bugs in the head unit.